


i think the universe may be out to get us

by thescrewtapedemos



Series: how to build a relationship after puking on their shoes, an essay by Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the third [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Meet-Cute, meet-not-so-cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3124901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the story of how a ruined pair of shoes, half-priced appetizers, a temperamental contraband hotplate, and a liberal coating of grievous bodily harm started a relationship. Guest starring comfort food, some truly hideous hoodies, and way too much coincidence to actually be, you know, a coincidence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://deliverusfromsburb.tumblr.com/post/98395987533/i-understand-that-a-lot-of-people-enjoy-writing) post and all the additions kind fellow college-sufferers have done.

Patrick really fucking loves college. 

“I really fucking love college!” he shouts in Joe’s ear. 

Joe grins and nods along like he heard. Patrick has his doubts. Joe stinks like a dispensary and the music is incredibly loud, but hey. There’s the better part of an entire bottle of wine and far too many beers to contemplate merrily playing havoc with Patrick’s balance and life is fucking _sweet_. 

The music switches tracks abruptly to something less bass-heavy and Patrick falls back onto the couch. His head is spinning pleasantly and he’s not sure he knows where he is, either in the house or in Chicago. It doesn’t really bother him as much as it probably should. He’s three parties into the night, courtesy Joe, and he’s not normally like this he swears. 

It’s just, wine has a sweet, sweet siren song, and a bottle into the night the beer had started looking really good. A couple of cans later and now he’s sitting on a smelly couch in a dingy house in probably the suburbs, Jesus Christ. Just a few feet away a couple are attempting to lick each other’s tonsils and Patrick doesn’t even care. 

College is the fucking best. 

The dude detaches from his probably-hopefully girlfriend’s mouth to eye Patrick dubiously. 

“Do you mind, dude?” he asks. He’s slurring just as bad as Patrick is. 

Patrick considers this to the best of his cognitive abilities. 

“No,” he answers, and gives the dude a thumbs up. “Excellent uh, technique. Gotta… Gotta go.” 

Getting to his feet is an adventure and he has to make a couple runs at it before he achieves his full height. Joe’s slipped off somewhere but Patrick is just in too good of a mood to let it bother him. He wants another beer. 

The kitchen is fruitful, both in terms of beer and company. He has upgraded to Heineken and _two_ dudes making out, against the fridge. Fuck yeah, college house parties. Patrick zones for a few seconds, enjoying his beer and the scenery. 

When he blinks back into what’ll have to pass for focus, there’s a dude staring at him. 

He wouldn’t have noticed because, hello, _totally_ wasted, except the dude isn’t trying to be subtle in the least. Actually he’s front and center, square in the middle of Patrick’s field of vision, not even trying to hide it. He’s squinting ferociously and doesn’t appear to have to blink. 

There’s a can of Heineken in his hand that he seems to have forgotten about. It’s dribbling a little over the side of his hand from the way he’s listing slightly to the side. Patrick has the slight suspicion creepy-staring-dude may be as trashed as Patrick is.

Patrick notes the stupid fringe and alarmingly bright shoes. He’s wearing a purple hoodie with some sort of combo bat-wing-heart-skull monstrosity that looks homemade and objectively terrible. Patrick rates him a seven maybe. An eight if he blinked. 

He offers a tentative grin and Mr. Creeper grins back, face lighting up like a Christmas tree. Patrick makes his way over, to ask how the fuck he manages to go without blinking maybe. Shit’s creepy as hell. 

The dude stumbles into him when Patrick’s close enough and bobbles his head a little, vacant and loose and fucking wasted. Patrick grins back hesitantly, grappling clumsily to try to hold both of them upright. Much harder than he remembers it being. 

“Hey, are you-,” he slurs out, trying to ask if the dude is going to be okay, but then the dude leans over and pukes all over Patrick’s shoes. 

That answers that question, then.

0o0

Patrick really fucking hates college.

“I really fucking hate college,” he moans into his elbow. It’s the darkest place he can put his face right now, short of pulling his covers over his head like a kid. He doesn’t even remember anything after the second party, much less getting back to his room. Mostly he’s grateful Joe managed to get them into the right building, with how wasted Patrick had to have been. 

No thanks are going to be given, however, because Joe is a vicious bastard with a satanic ability to drink an entire distillery without a hangover. The worst quality in the world in a roommate Patrick is pretty sure. Patrick hates him so much. 

“I’m never drinking again,” he continues, and rolls over with his arm still over his eyes. Joe giggles from his side of the room. 

“We should get breakfast. You’ll feel better with shitty cafeteria eggs in you, I promise,” he tells Patrick helpfully. Patrick lowers his arm cautiously from one eye to give Joe a baleful stare. It hurts immensely but it’s worth it. 

“I’m going to kill myself,” he intones direly. 

“That’s the spirit,” Joe cheers and kicks the leg of Patrick’s bed. Patrick revises his plans. 

“I’m going to kill _you_ ,” he informs Joe.

“Can’t do that without getting up,” Joe says reasonably. Patrick moans piteously but starts to heave himself out of bed. If he’s going to puke out all his organs and then have his head explode the way it feels like it wants to, he might as well do it over shitty eggs. 

Navigating his way across the room is hard, even at the best and most sober of times, which Patrick is currently not experiencing. With his sense of balance gone and nausea rolling in his stomach, it’s an exercise in misery not helped at all by Joe. Who is… groping around on top of his closet? Patrick doesn’t want to know. 

His shoes, he discovers when he reaches the door, are covered in vomit. 

“Joe, why are my shoes covered in puke?” he asks quietly, unable to summon an emotion other than deep, deadening despair. Scrubbing his hands over his face and looking again doesn’t change the fact that his only pair of shoes that aren’t hilariously dressy or flip-flops are covered in crusty vomit. 

Joe pops his head up from where he’s laid out full-length on the floor, fishing around under his bed. 

“You got puked on last night,” he tells Patrick, sounding like he’s talking about fucking… flower arranging or something. Something totally normal and not utterly fucking disgusting. “Funny shit, for real.” 

“I’m going to kill you, and _then_ kill myself,” Patrick decides. 

“Got it!” Joe crows triumphantly, and holds up a single sock.

0o0

Patrick stares down at his toes, wiggling in the cold air. He hates flip-flops. He hates college. He hates winter. He hates hangovers. He hates wine. He _really_ hates wine.

“It could be worse,” Joe offers reasonably. “You only had a little vomit on your pants.” 

Patrick glances at his shorts and looks away again. He didn’t even know he had these. 

“I’m in hell,” he decides, and morosely stabs a piece of runny egg with his fork. 

Joe nods sympathetically and then when Patrick doesn’t continue starts in about genre-bending in regards to rapcore and crunk, something Patrick could probably live without hearing about. Patrick tunes him out. He’s having issues with the runniness of the eggs re: keeping them on his fork and it doesn’t help that his hangover is forcing him to squint against the light. He gives up eventually and stares gloomily across the room. 

“-I mean, just look at fucking nu metal-,” Joe says. 

“Nu metal is a shitty genre and you know it,” Patrick interrupts absently, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 

“Okay, given,” Joe agrees, only slightly put-out, “But at least people are _trying something new_ for once-,” 

Patrick tunes back out and focuses away again. His head hurts slightly less when he looks into the distance and unfocuses his eyes a little, and that nagging sharp pain behind his left eye is almost gone-

Patrick is ninety percent sure the dude in line just picked up an entire cardboard box of Froot Loops and tucked it into his hoodie. 

He focuses again, very suddenly, wincing but forcing himself to watch. He’s seen people sneak out food, he’s done it himself. Everyone’s done it. But this is audacity on a whole new plane of existence and Patrick wants to be privy to it. 

As he watches the dude glances around and snags a handful of spoons, tucking them into the back pocket of his jeans and tugging his hoodie down over the whole deal. There’s surprisingly little bulge. The hideously fluorescent green color of the fabric probably helps. 

“Patrick, are you even listening?” Joe asks, sounding vaguely disgruntled. 

“Not even a little,” Patrick tells him, still staring. The dude is sticking a banana in his hood, what the _fuck_? 

“What are you-?” Joe asks, twisting in his seat to see what Patrick staring at. 

As they watch the dude picks up a final item, a cup of yogurt, and tucks that into a hoodie pocket. 

“Christ,” Joe says, sounding impressed, and Patrick nods agreement. 

The dude spoons himself a plate of eggs and offers it to the bored cashier with an obnoxious grin. The girl doesn’t even look at him, ringing it in. The guy turns as she does and sweeps the cafeteria with eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. 

He’s got a hideous fringe, pulled over one eye, and Patrick can’t shake the feeling he knows him. 

Apparently his staring gets the dude’s attention because his head spins in Patrick direction and their eyes meet. Patrick’s pretty sure, the sunglasses make it hard to tell. The dude freezes for a long moment, posture suddenly significantly less cocky. 

Patrick very deliberately looks away. When he glances back the dude has vanished into thin air. A covert scan of the dining area reveals absolutely nothing. 

“Pete Wentz,” Joe says, tone laughing, and Patrick blinks. 

“What?” he asks. 

“That was Pete Wentz. Crazy motherfucker,” Joe elaborates. “Cool dude, though. Surprised you don’t know him, he puked on your shoes last night.”


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick would like to start by saying that Philosophy of Religion is a stupid class. 

It’s a stupid class in a stupid building a _really_ stupid distance across campus from pretty much everything. It has a stupid teacher too and Patrick’s really tired of the snide remarks whenever he comes it late. It's not _Patrick's_ fault the class he has beforehand gets out with ten minutes to spare. 

He doesn’t even have that long this time, barely five minutes, and he is dashing across the quad in a desperate attempt to reach his Philosophy of Religion class before the door is shut. It’s warm out for once, and Patrick’s sweating through his jacket. He’s not a jogger by a long shot. 

He just planning the annoyed email he's going to send his advisor about scheduling decisions when something slams into the side of Patrick head with the force of a mule kick. 

Patrick blacks out for a moment. 

When he comes too he’s sprawled out on the grass of the quad and his head hurts like a motherfucker. His side too, like maybe he got decked in the side of the head with something and then hit the ground hard. And skidded a few feet, it feels like. 

He lifts his head a little and there’s a frisbee lying innocently on the ground a ways away like it hadn’t just done its level best to murder him. Patrick eyes it dubiously. 

Someone slides to their knees beside him, shouting incoherently, and Patrick winces and focuses on them with difficulty. 

It’s shoe-vomit food-thief dude, Pete Wentz. Patrick groans, in pain and with the fact that apparently the universe is out to get him. He wonders abstractly what ancient Aztec deity he pissed off to deserve this level of petty vengeance. 

“Are you alright dude?” Wentz demands. He sounds panicked and he’s hovering his hands over Patrick like he’s not sure which part he should be triaging first. He doesn’t seem to recognize Patrick at least, thank god. Having to deal with that is more than he wants to contemplate. 

Finally registering Pete’s words, Patrick does a quick experimental wiggle. He doesn’t appear to be bleeding from anywhere important, and nothing hurts enough to be a broken bone. Mostly just scuffs and a knock on the head that’s probably going to be an impressive lump later. 

“Think I’m okay?” he says tentatively, more to the world at large than Pete in particular. He’s dizzy as fuck and not even Pete being hot and in Patrick’s vicinity is quite enough to get through that. 

“Shit, I didn’t mean to hit you, I’m so sorry dude,” Pete says, apparently finally settling on patting Patrick’s shoulder. “Where were you running to?” 

“Fucking shit!” Patrick hisses and lunges to his feet because he’s _still fucking late_. 

Pete is left blinking after him from the ground, hands still patting at the air uselessly. 

When he finally pants his way up the stairs to his Philosophy of Religion classroom the door is closed and locked. He leans his aching head against the wall for a moment and tries not to stamp his foot like a child. 

_Fucking Pete Wentz_.

0o0

The rain is pouring down. Patrick is pretty sure there’s like, evil spirits of some kind floating around in the clouds and pouring out literal buckets of water. An awe-inspiring amount of water is dropping from the heavens. Moses parted seas like these. Noah sailed through torrential downpours just a little heavier than this. There is a _fuckton of water_ happening all around him.

And normally Patrick would appreciate that, but he’s got a fucking _group project_ due tomorrow morning and he needs pizza like he needs air. The driver is, of course, running late and the sky is fucking falling. 

Patrick is fuming a little bit, camping out in the little awning protecting the door to his building. The pizza driver can take the delicious americanized cuisine to him all the way at the door this time. If he ever shows up, of course. Patrick heaves another sigh and kicks at the puddle on the concrete. 

Obeying the universal law that says Patrick can’t catch a break some jackass chooses this moment to open the door and bodycheck him to the ground. 

“Fuck!” he shouts as he struggles up to his knees. His pants are suddenly, shockingly wet. And cold, fuck. “What the hell, fuckhead-,” 

“Oh, sorry dude,” a familiar voice says, and a pair of hands are suddenly helping him up to his feet. Patrick groans and turns. 

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” Pete Wentz says, and smiles apologetically. He’s missing his sunglasses and, when Patrick covertly glances down, the horrendous shoes. The hoodie is still there and his fringe is still totally stupid, but Patrick’s dick apparently can work with that. 

He’s not shallow enough to totally forgive just on the basis of a pretty face, though, and he scowls at Pete. 

“We really fucking do,” he says grumpily and turns away pointedly to lean against the wall. 

Turns out the wall is cold and knobbly and uncomfortable but Patrick refuses to get back up. He’d look stupid. Staring determinedly into the dark rain for the pizza car is a lot cooler. 

“Waiting for pizza too?” Pete asks companionably, completely ignoring the silent ‘fuck off’ signals Patrick is sending out. 

“Yeah,” Patrick says shortly and shifts his feet a little. His socks are wet now, and squish unpleasantly. Patrick is a little miserable. 

“Whatcha up to with it?” Pete asks, still way too cheerful for how cold and wet it is, and Patrick relents with a sigh. He’s just not built to hold grudges, really. Besides, standing up and facing Pete means he can get off the uncomfortable wall. 

“Group project,” Patrick tells him gloomily and Pete makes a sympathetic noise, gesturing for Patrick to go on. “My group’s mostly fine except this one dude, right, and he finally emailed me his piece of the presentation that’s due _tomorrow_. And the formatting is all fucked up and I’m the only one with all the pieces so I have to be the one to fix it all.” Patrick groans at the memory of how much work he has left to do. 

“Fucking sucks, dude,” Pete bobs in place a little, fringe flopping in a way that is totally not endearing and is actually very stupid. Patrick looks away. 

“Really does,” he sighs. “I need this pizza for my sanity.” 

“Sanity pizza.” Pete nods sagely. “Been there, man.” 

They’re frozen for a long silent moment looking at each other, the rain drumming on the canvas over their heads. It feels really intimate and Patrick can feel the flush starting to crawl its way up the back of his neck. He coughs and shuffles his soaked sneakers to break the silence. 

“So what’s your pizza for?” he asks. He sounds awkward as hell and he doesn’t give a fuck so long as Pete doesn’t notice his blush. “Sanity pizza?” 

Pete laughs, and it sounds a little false. 

“Something like that,” he mutters. “Got kicked out for a few hours so my roommate can bang his girlfriend. Which, fair play I guess. All the power to him.” 

Patrick frowns. 

“Dude, that sucks,” he says. “It’s like midnight.” 

Pete laughs humorlessly. “It’s actually been a few hours. The pizza is gonna be me saying ‘hey this is my fucking room too, here’s a pizza to quit banging so I can sleep’.” 

Patrick bursts out laughing, finally giving in to the shivering he’s been trying to ignore and folding up at the waist. His pants are damp, his shoes are full of water, and there’s a cute dude talking to him about sanity pizza in the middle of the Biblical Flood. Patrick’s life is fucking bizarre. 

Pete’s snickering a little himself when Patrick finally manages to get back to his full height. 

The pizza car chooses this moment to pull up to the curb and douse both of them in a wave of freezing dirty water.

0o0

Patrick sincerely loves having Joe as a roommate. He’s clean, witty, and incredibly generous with whatever intoxicating substance he happens to have on hand. On top of that, he’s also just generally a sweet dude. A genuinely nice person. Honestly, the best.

Just not around cheap food. 

Joe slams through their door, standing haloed in the light from the hallway. Patrick narrowly avoids flipping his laptop off his lap, clutching the plastic case so hard his hand hurts instead. 

“Patrick Stump, get some shoes on,” Joe says dramatically, and Patrick groans. 

“What for?” he asks, letting go of his laptop and flexing his hands gingerly. Joe hipchecks the door shut and starts to bounce on his toes, making urgent gestures at Patrick. 

“There’s a restaurant downtown that’s doing half-price appetizer night and I am in desperate need of mozzarella sticks,” Joe says, and then reaches into Patrick’s lap and physically shuts the lid of his laptop. Patrick bats at him half-heartedly but gives up and sets it aside after a second. 

“But why do _I_ have to come along?” he asks plaintively. Joe grabs him by the arm and starts levering him to his feet. Patrick goes limp and flops backwards in defense. 

“Because I love you and I want to spend time with you. Get off your ass, Jesus!” Joe grits out, finally resorting to rolling Patrick towards the edge of the bed. 

He misjudges and Patrick rolls all the way off, hitting the floor with a manly shriek. 

“Joe,” he begins, muffled by the way his face is squished into the floor. 

“I know, you’re gonna kill me,” Joe says completely unapologetically. “Just get your fucking shoes on.” 

Patrick sighs and gets to his feet. He snags his flip-flops on the way out.

0o0

The restaurant isn’t very far, at least. Patrick makes sure to complain the entire way there. Joe threatens to leave him repeatedly and Patrick takes great, sadistic joy in reminding him that Patrick presence on this voyage was entirely Joe’s idea.

Their destination is across the street from what looks like a guns and ammunition store. It’s hard to tell, because there’s a crowd of people standing in front of it, waving handmade signs and yelling. Joe doesn’t take any notice and pulls Patrick through the door of the grungy little dinner. 

The inside is quiet and dim, all cracked vinyl seats and flickering neon lighting. It’s straight out of the eighties and Patrick’s charmed instantly. 

“Take a seat wherever,” the waitress tells them without looking up from her phone, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. 

Joe yanks Patrick to a little table against the wall and disappears to go chat with the waitress. Patrick spends a few moments watching Joe work his magic, the waitress setting her phone aside and smiling apparently despite herself. 

He’s interrupted by someone thumping down in the seat across from him. He spins, startled, and is greeted by a flare of bright salmon. 

When he focuses he instantly recognizes the owner of the salmon article of clothing. It’s Pete Wentz, and he’s wearing yet another horrible hoodie. Besides being salmon, it has a little checkered pattern of black squares around the hood and sleeves that makes Patrick dizzy unless he gives a concerted effort not to focus on it. 

“Hi! I figured I should introduce myself since I keep, you know, assaulting you. I'm Pete Wentz.” 

Pete grins from under his stupid fringe. Patrick is well aware this shouldn’t be as charming as it is but Patrick is a weak man and Pete is very cute. He shrugs and smiles back as normally as he can. 

“I, um, know who you are,” he says without thinking and then winces when he realizes what he’s said. “A friend of mine pointed you out,” he clarifies before realizing that doesn’t sound much better. 

Patrick is honestly not sure why he doesn’t just duct tape his mouth shut, sometimes. 

Pete grins madly at him anyway, apparently not put off in the least. “So what’s your name?” 

“Patrick. Patrick Stump,” Patrick mutters. He prays desperately he’s not flushing. His skin-tone does horrendous things when he blushes. Pete leans across the table on his elbows and Patrick tries to be subtle about the way he leans back. 

“Hello, Patrick Stump,” Pete says cheerfully. 

He doesn’t continue, instead apparently choosing to stare at Patrick through his ridiculous hair, still grinning hugely. 

“What are you here for?” Patrick blurts without thinking and then winces. Someday he’s going to stop being so awkward, he swears. 

Pete just grins in the face of his total lack of social grace, shrugging and jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“I’m here in my official capacity as a friend. My roommate Andy’s out there protesting. But cheap mozzarella sticks were calling my name, so I had to duck in here.” he says. 

Patrick opens his mouth to say something, even though he has no idea what he’s going to say and that rarely ends well, when the door to outside slams open and a ginger dude with long hair falls through it. He shuts it behind him with worryingly controlled quickness. 

“Pete,” he calls across the room and Patrick watches as Pete spins. “Cops got called, we have to bail.” 

“You’re shitting me, Hurley,” Pete calls back but he’s already snagging his wallet off the table, leaving a couple of bills behind. “I’ll meet you at the van, get going!” 

The dude who is apparently named Hurley nods and ducks back through the door. 

Patrick gapes up at Pete. Pete shrugs back, expression not nearly concerned enough by the involvement of the cops. 

“Duty calls,” he says in a mocking tone, then grins honestly at Patrick. “Take my order, I’d hate for them to go to waste.” 

Patrick watches him go, completely lost for words. Pete’s out the door too soon for him to have said anything anyway. 

Joe drops into the seat across from him and frowns down at the pile of money. 

“Who was that?” he asks. 

Patrick shrugs and shuts his mouth with a snap.


	3. Chapter 3

Patrick is trying to study for his finals - the most important test of the semester - and someone is singing in the kitchen. That, or butchering a goat. Patrick is betting on the singing, their dorm’s rules regarding animals are pretty draconian, but he can’t be totally sure. Although the longer he listens the more he’s convinced what’s being butchered are the lyrics to fucking _Ave Maria_. 

Normally Patrick would be intrigued by someone committing that level of bizarre ultraviolence to the poor song, but he has an Intro to Physics course he’s doing really, really badly in and he needs to study. He would be able to do that if it weren’t for the person in the kitchen who is, currently, murdering a goat or singing along to music from the nineteenth century. 

He’s about ready to stab a motherfucker, is what he’s getting at. 

The singing stops and Patrick breathes easier, refocusing on the equations for the basic laws. He’s on the third when the singing starts up again with the sound of a drawer crashing closed and he feels the last thread of his sanity snap. He's on his feet and stomping across the room in moments. 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Patrick barks and slams the door to the kitchenette open. The person on the other side screams shrilly and whirls. 

They face each other across the room and Patrick feels his stomach sink as he registers who it is. 

It’s Pete Wentz, offensively ugly hoodie and sunglasses and all, a mixing bowl hanging guiltily in one hand and a whisk in the other. He’s wearing a stupid pink Kiss the Cook apron with what looks like glitter on it. Patrick isn’t sure if he’s more horrified by the idea of Pete finding the apron in the kitchenette and voluntarily putting it on or actually _owning_ it. 

How does this keep _happening_?

They blink at each other, or at least Patrick blinks at Pete and Pete doesn’t seem to be looking away. He feels the rage bubbling in his chest gutter. Pete’s got his mouth open a little bit in shock and if Patrick’s honest with himself it’s fucking adorable. 

“Hi,” Pete says, tone squeaky with surprise. 

Patrick blinks again and then groans. 

“I’m, um, trying to study,” he mutters and gestures back into the common room uselessly. “You were, uh. Singing.” 

Privately Patrick thinks that he’s being charitable but in the face of Pete’s helpless expression he can’t bring himself to actually compare the dude's voice to any of the dozens of unflattering comparisons he had come up with previously. 

Pete pushes his sunglasses up on his forehead, bunching up his stupid fringe and revealing a pair of extremely wide eyes. Patrick is yet again reminded he’s facing off with a solid eight. The presence of the apron and bowl of cookie dough don’t do enough to alleviate the hotness factor. 

“I am so sorry, dude, I thought I had the place to myself,” Pete says. He shifts on his feet for a moment and then proffers the bowl. “I’m making cookies. Do you want some? To make up for it?” 

Patrick considers. On the one hand, hot dude is offering delicious baked goods and would be less likely to continue singing if Patrick stayed. On the other hand…

He glances back at the pile of notebooks and the shiny pages of his physics textbook. The highlighters gleam in a way Patrick can only describe as menacing. 

“I can’t, still have to study,” he says with real regret. He notes that Pete’s face actually falls and hastens to continue. “I’m failing Physics. Maybe, um, some other time?”

Pete’s momentary sadness disappears with a flashing grin so bright Patrick’s pretty sure he could go blind looking at it too long. 

“Oh dude, totally! Good luck on the studying, physics is dicks,” he says and walks his bowl back to the mixer with one last grin. Patrick’s pretty sure he’s going red and he ducks back into the common room before he can make an ass of himself and say something like ‘I’m pretty sure the universe is arranging all these coincidence and I’d like to know why’. Because that would be _crazy_ , right?

“Thanks, man,” he tells the closed kitchen door belatedly. All he gets in response is the faint sound of Pete humming. Still off-key and Ave Maria, what the actual fuck, but Patrick isn’t nearly as annoyed as he had been.

0o0

Patrick comes back from his finals with actual pride in himself for once. He’d done well and he knew it.

“Joe, are you-,” he calls as he opens the door. He’s interrupted by a little ceramic clinking noise and he looks down in surprise. There’s a little plate of chocolate chip cookies on the floor just inside the door, arranged in the shape of a smiley face. There’s an oil-spotted sticky note too, and Patrick crouches to read it. 

_Hope the finals went well! PLKW3 <333_ the note reads and Patrick sits down rather abruptly. 

He’s flushing with what feels like every blood cell in his body. Every single one migrating to his cheeks. He has a pretty good idea who PLKW3 is - though what was up with all the extra letters and the number Patrick couldn’t fathom a guess - and all he can do for a long few minutes is stare down at the plate of cookies and grin stupidly.

0o0

Break is nice. It’s quiet, a few weeks of Chicago suburbs and guitar-playing. No partying, no bodily harm, and absolutely guaranteed _no_ Pete Wentz whatsoever.

Patrick can’t stop himself from looking over his shoulder every time he goes outside. He can’t shake the paranoid feeling Pete’s going to somehow pop up and knock him into a garbage can or something. He’s not disappointed when that doesn’t happen; that would be ridiculous.

His mother asks him if he’s got a significant other and he thinks about saying ‘the universe is trying to get this one dude to assassinate or kiss me and I’m still not sure which’ but in the end thinks better of it. Too much explaining would be necessary. It’s just a stupid crush on a hot dude exacerbated by the fact that apparently the universe is out to get him, whatever.

0o0

Patrick is entirely disinterested in Sociology 206, Introduction to Human Family Dynamics. He’s not even 21 years old yet, much less interested in ‘family dynamics’. On the other hand, he needs credits desperately to qualify for financial aid, and literally nothing else had been open when he’d applied.

The joys of being a freshman, hoo-fucking-ray. 

His deep displeasure with the class is compounded by the fact it meets at eight in the goddamn morning. It’s the first day of class and Patrick already hates everything in the world. With any luck a seat in one of his waitlisted classes would open up, but Patrick isn’t sure the universe likes him enough. 

He slumps into a seat near the back and paws gloomily through his bag for his supplies. Absently he hears someone moving down the aisle and pulls his bag out of their way without bothering to look up. 

He does jolt upright, however, when the person drops into the seat next to him. 

Pete Wentz is sitting next to him, juggling a cup of coffee and his bag, and Patrick gives up on having a normal class for the rest of the semester. 

“Hi, Pete,” he says. He’s pretty proud of himself for not sounding as utterly done as he is. He’d managed to avoid seeing so much as a hideous hoodie or a pair of sunglasses for a month solid, and here’s all his effort wasted. 

Trying to talk is unsuccessful though because Pete just grunts and slumps down in his chair, yanking his hood over his head. He’s wearing his sunglasses but what Patrick can see of his face is set in a deep frown. 

Patrick decides to leave him alone before the power of Pete’s self-pity actually melts through the chair and dumps him on the floori. 

The teacher comes in and introduces herself, starts talking through the syllabus, which is somehow _even more_ boring than Patrick thought it would be. He’s got the syllabus printed out and a pencil just in case but not even the teacher seems to be awake. 

Out of the corner of his eye he spots Pete rummaging around in his bag. He watches absently, mind on the pile of sheet music sitting under his bed. 

Pete pulls out a can of Red Bull, picks up the coffee sitting on the floor next to him, calmly pops the lid, and pours in the Red Bull into the coffee. 

“What the _fuck_?” Patrick demands reflexively, and at least three people turn in their seats to look at them. Patrick doesn’t care because Pete is about to _kill himself_. 

“What.” Pete asks flatly, taking a gulp of what’s probably by most definitions now poison. 

“You’re gonna die!” Patrick sputters at him, unable to think of anything else to say. Other than ‘holy shit that’s fucking gross’, he guesses. 

Pete looks at him for a second through the sunglasses, then looks down at his nasty drink of poison and shrugs. Patrick watches in horror as he takes another gulp. 

“Can’t kill what’s already dead inside,” he says and then chugs _the entire fucking thing_ before Patrick’s horrified eyes. 

Patrick is speechless. He spends the rest of the class blatantly watching Pete for signs of impending death. The only thing he sees is a fine, constant vibration set in around his hands. It kind of reminds Patrick of a chihuahua.

0o0

Patrick gets into the Musical Theory class he’d been hoping for and drops Sociology 206. He doesn’t feel an ounce of regret, not at all. 


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick is woken up from his lovely nap by the feeling that the ceiling has fallen on him. 

The ceiling is apparently very warm and very flaily and, when Patrick manages to open one eye, colored traffic-cone orange. Patrick is confused because when he’d last gone to sleep the ceiling in the common room where he’d decided to take his nap had been green and not sentient, and he pries open his other eye to figure out what the hell is going on. 

Pete Wentz grins at him weakly from the general area of his chest. Patrick feels his sanity crumble a little bit. 

“What?” Patrick asks breathlessly. It conveys, he feels, the full extent of his lack of understanding. 

“In my defense I thought the couch was empty!” Pete says brightly, tone utterly panicked and false. He then launches himself off of Patrick like Patrick is radioactive. As Patrick watches he barrels across the room and disappears through the door to the halls. He knocks over a tiny Asian exchange student in the process. 

“What?” Patrick repeats, mostly to himself.

0o0

The fire alarm shakes Patrick out of a Garageband-induced trance, overpowering the sweet little guitar riff he’d been fooling around with. He groans and shuts the lid of his laptop without saving. If he loses his work, so be it. He’s never been the hugest fan of pop-punk anyway.

There’s a mass of pissed-off students in the parking lot when Patrick finally wanders over to it, huddled in whatever hoodies and jackets they’d thought to grab on their way out of their rooms. Now that he thinks about it he can smell a little bit of smoke in the air. It occurs to him that he should possibly be worried, but no one around him actually seem panicked so he shrugs it away. 

Someone attempts to tackle him seconds later and that effectively distracts him from worrying anyway. 

“It’s fucking _freezing_ ,” the mass of person attaching itself to Patrick’s side says. Patrick recognizes the reemergence of the salmon checkered hoodie and sighs. 

“Hi, Pete,” he says fatalistically. Pete is putting out heat like a furnace, he resolutely refuses to notice. He hadn’t been aware he and Pete were on the level of friendship that allowed this level of physical contact but he isn’t about to complain. 

“Oh dude,” Pete whines, “you've got flip-flops.” He lifts a foot and wiggles bare toes at Patrick. It really isn’t charming at all, Patrick knows this. 

“My other pair of shoes is out of commission,” Patrick decides to say with heavy irony. He’s too cold and tired to bother being self-conscious or shy. 

Pete winces, just slightly, and Patrick has time to wonder if _maybe Pete remembers what happened_ before Joe slams into the side not currently being occupied by Pete and starts complaining. 

“It’s cold as _dicks_ , dude,” he whines, shaking his ‘fro in Patrick’s face and shivering dramatically. “Oh, hey Pete.” 

“Joe, the hotplate you loaned us set our dorm on fire!” Pete says gleefully. 

“That was _you_?” Patrick demands at the same time Joe says “Oh dude, killer!” 

“That was Andy,” Pete says, suddenly shifty. When Patrick tilts his head to glare at him as much as possible Pete presses his face into Patrick’s shoulder to avoid it. 

Patrick can feel his breath through his thin jacket, hot and damp. He shivers and thinks about unsexy things really hard. Like his physics grade. Or how much trouble he’s going to be in if the fire department finds out whose hotplate it was. 

“Wait, are we going to get in trouble?” he asks, and tries not to think about the nervous squeak in his voice. 

“Well, it was your faulty hotplate,” a voice says from beyond where Pete is still using Patrick’s shoulder to avoid his eyes. Patrick cranes his neck around to find the ginger activist roommate, hands in pockets and apparently completely unconcerned with the cold air and his lack of shirt. 

He’s got some pretty impressive tattoos actually. 

“Oh yeah,” Joe says flippantly, popping his head up to grin wide and guilelessly at Andy. “It was my roommate’s. He’s totally irresponsible, you have no idea.” 

He gestures at Patrick like a _total traitor_. Andy turns deeply amused eyes on him and Patrick backpedals a little, bumping into Pete who huffs out a laugh against his neck. As if his night couldn’t get any worse. 

“That is,” Patrick begins, and then pauses to compute everything about the situation. “Absolutely no part of that is true.” 

“Come on, Saporta stole a chair from the dining hall and he’s gonna start a bonfire!” someone shouts. Patrick breathes a sigh of relief for being saved from having to discuss the illegal hotplate. 

“Shit yes,” Pete calls back and vanishes off into the crowd as suddenly as he’d arrived. 

“Dude I have to see this, Gabe’s gonna get expelled,” Joe says and follows Pete. Patrick’s left blinking in the cold dark, Andy standing placidly a few feet away. He’s still got his hands in his pockets. He’s still shirtless. 

Patrick fumbles for something to say. 

“Aren’t you worried you two are going to get in trouble?” Patrick asks at last. “I mean, the hotplate is kind of against the rules.” 

“No, it’s okay, they won’t know it was us. Pete threw it in someone else’s room before we went outside,” Andy says serenely. 

“Um,” Patrick says. “What?”

0o0

Patrick is almost late for class but he’s also almost out of clean boxers. It’s a dilemma, and the reason he’s getting increasingly annoyed with the owner of the clothes occupying the only washer that isn’t mid-cycle.

He stares at the washer for a minute. Probably he’s just projecting, but he can hear the clock on the wall ticking. 

Half a minute later and with twelve minutes to get across campus, he gives up on the owner of the clothes. The washer turns out to contain mostly socks, one sad pair of briefs, and a t-shirt with Yoda in shutter-shades on it. Patrick sets the whole load on top of the washer and shoves in his pile of dirty laundry. 

“Fucking asshole,” he mutters, gathering up the pile of damp clothing and awkwardly waddling towards the bank of dryers. _He’s_ not going to be a dick, he’ll put the dude’s clothes in a dryer like a decent human being. 

“So uh, those are mine,” an amused voice breaks through Patrick’s concentration. He recognizes it with a rush of dread and drops the whole armful on the ground. 

“Shit,” he says succinctly and drops to his knees, desperately gathering up the socks. He can’t look up at Pete, can’t meet his eyes. “Sorry, shit, I just really needed to get a load done-,” 

“It’s chill dude, it’s fine.” Pete squats next to him and helps gather up the errant socks. 

“Still, sorry,” Patrick mutters and stuffs his handful of socks into the bag Pete holds out without looking at him. Pete grabs the last sock and they’re left with a floor bare of Pete’s laundry and an extremely echoing silence. 

Patrick sits back on his heels and finally meets Pete’s eyes. He’s closer than Patrick had thought, and looking right at him. His fringe is falling in his eyes but his sunglasses are tucked into the collar of his shirt and not even a hint of hideous hoodie can be seen. 

Pete stares at him for a long moment and Patrick is pretty sure it’s just wishful thinking on his part but Pete’s cheeks look a little pinker than they were before. It must be his imagination the way Pete’s eyes drop for _just a moment_ to Patrick’s mouth and then jump back to meet his eyes. 

Patrick feels color explode in his cheeks, hot and uncomfortable. Before he can do something insane like lean forward and brush his lips against Pete’s cheek or _worse_ he throws himself backwards and to his feet. He stumbles and catches himself on a dryer. 

“I have to go to class,” he chokes out, and sprints out the door. 

He realizes halfway across the quad that he’d forgotten to turn on the washer and curses loudly, frightening a nearby campus tour full of suburban moms. Fucking _Pete Wentz_.

0o0

Patrick wakes from his nap to the sound of insistent knocking at the door. It stops almost the instant Patrick realizes what woke him and Patrick’s left blinking at the dim room, wondering if he’d imagined it.

The knocking resumes in a sudden, staccato burst and Patrick realizes he’s not so lucky. 

A quick, groggy glance across the room ascertains that Joe’s gone, god knows where. Patrick actually can’t even be assed to care. He decides the person at the door is one of Joe’s dipshit stoner friends and burrows his head back under the pillows, waiting for them to stop knocking and go away. 

The dipshit at the door won’t stop knocking and go away. 

When a full minute has passed and the intermittent bursts of knocking only increase in frequency Patrick groans and heaves himself to his feet. A quick glance in the mirror across the room tells him he’s got creases pressed into his cheek and hair haloing his face in a starburst of slightly sweaty tendrils. Also, that he should probably put on pants before answering the door. 

Fuck that, Patrick decides and continues to the door. Whoever it is can deal with Patrick in his boxers. 

“What the fuck do you want-,” Patrick grouches, yanking the door open. 

The words die on his tongue. 

Pete’s standing on the other side of the door, arm raised like he was just about to knock again. 

They examine each other in silence for a beat. Pete’s eyes travel over him with wide-eyed, blank astonishment. He’s wearing a white hoodie this time, Patrick notes nonsensically, with a pattern like paisley and a set of highlighters had an ill-advised child. It’s not even close to the most hideous pattern he’s ever seen on Pete. 

Patrick wants to be wearing pants _so badly_. 

“Pete,” he says. His voice comes out a little choked. Pete twitches once at the sound, an all-over body movement that breaks him of whatever trance Patrick’s pale-ass legs had put him in. God, Patrick wants to be wearing pants.

“Hi!” he says back, grinning widely and, Patrick forces himself to stop thinking about the fact he’s not wearing pants long enough to notice, incredibly manically. 

“Hi,” Patrick says. His voice still isn’t working right. 

Pete bounces on his toes a few times, looking remarkably like he’s psyching himself up for a kickoff or something. Patrick watches him dubiously, taking a defensive hold on the door just in case. He hasn’t missed the fact that an unsettling number of the times he’s experienced a sudden Pete encounter involved bodily harm or property damage. It’s a pattern and Patrick isn’t happy about it. 

“Okay, okay, Patrick,” Pete says, rubbing his hands together like a fucking cartoon villain. Patrick blinks. 

Now that he’s taken the moment to look he realizes that Pete actually looks like hell. His stupid fringe is sticking up in a bunch of places, he’s missing his sunglasses, and his hoodie looks rumpled like it’s maybe spent a month at the bottom of a big pile of laundry. Also, there are the smudgy remains of what looks like last night’s eyeliner around his eyes. It really should be doing more to make Pete look less hot. 

“Yes?” Patrick hazards. Pete nods seriously like he’d actually asked a question requiring an answer. 

“Okay, Patrick, right then,” he continues, clapping his hands once and leaning forward into Patrick’s personal space. His expression is a little crazed. Patrick resists the urge to lean back. 

“That’s me,” Patrick allows. 

“I’m going to say something crazy, okay, something _totally fucking insane_ , and you’re not going to run away,” Pete says, actually grabbing Patrick shoulders. “Running away is not what you are going to do, promise me that. I swear I’m not a crazy person.” 

Patrick thinks Pete is not helping his case regarding being a crazy person. 

“Right, that was convincing,” he says dazedly. When Pete frowns like his heart is about to break Patrick continues hastily because Patrick is a pushover. “I promise.” 

Pete nods seriously and leans in even closer. Patrick can feel his manic breathing across his cheeks and holy crap his dick needs to calm down. Pete is - probably - not about to make out with him and is in fact more likely than not a crazy person. Not kissing material, Patrick has perfectly legitimate worries about his tongue being bitten off. 

“I realize how weird this sounds,” Pete says, “But I think the universe is trying to get us together? And I am, maybe, potentially, not totally opposed to the idea of giving it a try?” 

Patrick very suddenly can’t breathe. 

“Uhm!” he squeaks. 

Pete stares him in the eye for a few moments without blinking. Patrick stares back, unable to say a word. 

“Now would be the time to say words, ‘Trick,” Pete says. 

Patrick tries, he really does. He opens his mouth, tries to shape some sound but he doesn’t even have any words. His vocal cords are MIA. His lungs aren’t working right either, he’s pretty sure he’s not breathing. 

Pete’s face crumples slowly. It makes the missing breath in Patrick’s chest hurt suddenly, a sharp ache that still doesn’t manage to pull out words. 

“...’Trick?” he asks a few seconds later. It comes out small like Pete’s never heard his voice before. Patrick really doesn’t like the sound of it. He _still_ can’t make his mouth work, it’s just _hanging_ there uselessly. He’s starting to get light-headed with lack of oxygen from his useless lungs. 

“Right, sorry about that,” Pete says and lets go, draws back into himself. His hoodie suddenly looks too big for him. Patrick blinks and Pete’s turning away, moving to walk away back down the hallway and Patrick _cannot let that happen_. 

“Hey, no-,” Patrick finally manages, and then gives up. He doesn’t need words, _fuck_ words. He’s never been the words guy, and besides. He’s got better things for his mouth to do. 

Pete totally squeaks when Patrick grabs him by the arm and spins him around. Patrick makes a mental note to mock the shit out of him for it later and barrels ahead, pressing his mouth to Pete’s. 

He misses a little, and Pete’s mouth is open. He readjusts, parts his lips and tilts his mouth and then- shit. It’s good, hot and wet and Pete tastes like pizza, god. Patrick feels the tentative, delicious touch of tongue to his bottom lip. 

Patrick pulls back, his breath coming short and gasping. His lips tingle and he wants more, wants it so badly. Pete’s grinning like a jack o'lantern. 

“Hey, hey, Patrick?” he asks breathlessly, leaning in to whisper in Patrick’s ear. The brush of warm air against his neck makes him shiver. 

“Yeah?” he replies breathlessly. 

Pete pulls away and his eyes are gleaming, his smile twisted mischievously. Patrick suddenly realizes he’s been trapped. 

“I’m really digging the boxers,” Pete says innocently, and Patrick groans. His head drops forward until his forehead is pressed against Pete’s shoulder. All he can see is the hideous pattern of the fabric and he prefers it like that. Pete’s shoulder is vibrating with restrained laughter. 

“What have I signed myself up for,” Patrick says mournfully, and he’s not sure if he’s talking to Pete or to Pete’s hoodie. 

Pete laughs out loud, long and hard, and Patrick makes sure he doesn’t see the way he can’t help but grin along.


End file.
